Posted on 05/12/2005 2:21:54 AM PDT by An.American.Expatriate
US President Bush got a raucous welcome in Georgia on Tuesday. But he also got a hand grenade thrown at him. Why was security so tight when he visited Germany in February and so lax in Georgia, one of Europe's furthest outposts? Plus: if France doesn't torpedo the EU constitution, Holland might; and can Cannes survive without Michael Moore?
US President George W. Bush and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili play to the roaring crowd in Georgia's Freedom Square unaware that someone had lobbed an inactive grenade in their direction. Zoom AFP US President George W. Bush and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili play to the roaring crowd in Georgia's Freedom Square unaware that someone had lobbed an inactive grenade in their direction. Remember when George H. W. Bush Sr. made it pitifully clear how far from reality he lives by admitting he had no clue how much milk costs? It seems his son, George W. Bush, the most powerful man on the planet, is no better. Any time Bush travels at home or in Western Europe, entire populations are forcibly evacuated. Manholes are welded shut, airports, highways, schools, public offices are all closed. Just think of his 7-hour visit to the German town of Mainz in February. Given his general lack of worldly experience, Bush's impressions of Western Europe must be rather skewed -- perhaps a bit like those 1950s sci-fi films after the alien invasion has begun.
His vision of Eastern Europe, however, is much different. In February, after leaving the hermetically sealed Mainz, he touched down in the Slovakian capital of Bratislava, where he, rock-star like, "took a bath" among the people. He shook hands, kissed wrinkled babushkas and smiled for the cameras. This week, he did the same in Tbilisi, Georgia, where 150,000 people elbowed to get near him and hear him praise them for their bloodless, democratic Rose Revolution in November 2003. "We are living in historic times when freedom is advancing from the Black Sea to the Caspian and to the Persian Gulf and beyond," Bush told the crowd.
The truth is, though, that not everything was entirely peachy in springtime Georgia. Sure, Bush hammed it up in front of one of the largest crowds of his presidency -- and what is believed to be the largest crowed ever assembled in the former Soviet puppet state. And in stunning contrast to the crowds he elicits at home and in Germany, France and England, most of the young and the boisterous were there not to protest or because they'd been hand-picked -- but simply because they wanted to be. There was, however, at least one bad egg among them. Someone managed to lob a Soviet-era grenade within 100 feet of the president -- unbelievable, given the tight security that surrounds these events and the fact that there were both metal detectors at the entrances to the square and snipers with binoculars on the roofs. Though Georgian police quickly announced that there were no explosives inside, it still had its desired effect: It shook everyone up. Especially when it became clear that the American Secret Service -- supposedly the best in the world -- knew nothing of the grenade until an hour after it had been whisked away.
The question we have is: How did Bush and his famously careful bubble allow this breach? Why did they demand so much security in bourgeois Mainz and so little in still-unstable Georgia, where -- clearly -- there are a few too many old Soviet weapons on the market? One argument, of course, is politics. While Germans and other West Europeans tend to be searingly critical of Bush and his penchant for hyperbole, Eastern Europeans tend to adore him.
So were the security requirements imposed during Bush's Germany trip punishment for Germany's stance on the Iraq war? (Was it really necessary, for instance to cancel 92 Lufthansa flights and inconvenience 5,730 passengers during Bush's visit to Mainz?) Hard to say. It could of course, also be that the Germans -- and other western nations -- are so paranoid about not letting anything happening to Bush on their soil that they go overboard on security just to make sure he is safe.
Whatever the case, Bush's little brush with real life in Eastern Europe will likely be his last. We're betting the next time he rolls into the former Soviet states he'll be greeted by a crowd of none. (1:30 p.m. CET)
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When you are top dog, someone will always dislike you.
I would hope it would crash Hollyweird too, but due to rabid leftism in Hollyweird, Micheal MoorOn's absence would be negligable. Would be nice to see him drop off the face of the earth though!!!
Heck, I pick it up on the way home probably a couple of times a month and I don't remember exactly how much it costs.
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